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08/08/2004 |
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NetGear FR318 Iain Laskey looks at NetGear’s combined broadband router, switch and firewall
Small businesses and even many homes are increasingly finding they need to share their broadband Internet connection amongst several machines. The NetGear FR318 allows this and much more. The FR318 is the result of a collaboration between NetGear and SonicWall and as such comes from a good pedigree. SonicWall’s SoHo range of firewall routers have an excellent reputation for security and robustness. Setting it Up The FR318 connects to the broadband connection via a standard RJ45 connection so for those ADSL users who connect via a USB ‘frog’, they’ll need to change their BT supplied box for a 3rd party unit with a proper network connection. It also assumes a TCP/IP based LAN, naturally.
Features Galore As well as its basic function as a broadband NAT router, the FR318 also includes an 8 port 10/100 switch and as such, it replaces any hubs you may currently use. The front panel shows which RJ45 ports are active, their speed and any activity as well as the status of the Internet link. It also provides a proper hardware firewall to protect your LAN from any intrusion attempts or attacks. It protects against Denial of Service (DoS) attacks as well as the more usual probing by hackers. The firewall also allows you to block traffic according to content so if you want to stop the users accessing sites of a sexual nature or relating to alcohol, extremism and a host of other categories, this box can help. That said, it works by downloading details of such sites and as such, these details can never be totally accurate and complete. I tried setting up various blocks and still found as many of 50% of the sites I tried still getting through which is disappointing. Worse still, if you wish to continue using this feature, it requires a subscription of $99 for a years use of the CyberNOT content filtering list.
In Use As noted before, plugging everything together was fairly quick and painless. A router saves having to leave a PC permanently on to act as a gateway for the other machines which is a saving in itself. With up to eight machines supported out the box and up to 45 via software upgrades and hubs, the FR318 is flexible and upgradeable and allows room for your requirements and sophistication to grow. Once you have got the configuration right, you can back it up to a file which is a good idea. Following an unexpected power-out, I found it had reset itself to its factory state, including rather worryingly, the password. Having restored the settings from the backup file, as was well again and no matter how many times I unplugged it or for how long, it never again lost its settings so one can only assume this was a rare aberration. The firewall has a great deal of control and flexibility, all of which can be configured via a password protected web based interface. A number of predefined settings for commonly used functions are included and you can create new ones perhaps for playing multiplayer games. One thing to be wary of is that the firewall only blocks incoming intrusions. If you pick up a Trojan which then tries to connect to the outside world, the FR318 will happily let it. Because of this it is also advisable to install a software firewall such as ZoneAlarm to handle any outgoing problems. The built in DHCP server is also quite flexible and allows you to control lease times, reserve IP addresses by MAC addresses and more. You can even disable it on the fly if needed. Conclusion The FR318 looks expensive on the face of it but bundles a lot of functionality in to a single well built unit. It works well and does all that most SoHo users would want with the only obvious omissions being remote admin and user specific filtering in the firewall. If the £270 asking price is too rich for your pocket, you may want to consider its smaller sibling the FR314 which has only four ports and lacks the VPN option but costs £220. Overall, the FR318 is to be recommended, especially given the generous five year warranty. |
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The
FR318 can act as a DHCP server and as such will provide the IP
addresses for all the PCs connected to it. NetGear provide
instructions for both PCs running Windows and Macs to ensure you get
everything set up properly. The entire process should take less than
30 minutes. I was foxed initially as I forgot to reboot everything
but once that was done everything worked perfectly.
The
FR318 also provides a number of logging facilities. You can track
which web sites the users have been accessing as well as viewing the
firewall logs to see what has been happening there. You can
configure the FR318 to regularly email you these logs should you
want to keep an eye on things. If your ISP requires a logon/password
to use their email servers, you won’t be able to use this feature
though.
Finally,
the FR318 can support a single Virtual Private Network (VPN)
connection which provides a secure way for someone outside the
immediate LAN to log in. This could be used to access your home LAN
from work or to provide someone access for administrative purposes.
This also incurs an extra charge, this time $139. This does seem
somewhat excessive but if you need a VPN, it is worth bearing in
mind that the facility is there.